The performance video was shown at the Ceremonia music festival in Mexico City last weekend. Screenshots
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has defended security arrangements at the National Museum of Anthropology (MNA) after a video showing a performance artist kissing and licking pieces in its collection was presented at a music festival last weekend.
Durango native Pepx Romero kisses and licks several pre-Hispanic pieces at the Mexico City museum in a video that is part of his “Mexique 2022” project.
Presented at the Ceremonia music festival, the video is intended to criticize the sale of such pieces at auctions in France.
A voice-over says that pieces sold at auction belonged to pre-Hispanic cultures and were stolen. “[They were] all pieces whose historic and symbolic cultural essence was incalculable and which became simple objects of decoration in the living room or studio of a house,” it says.
INAH said earlier this week that it had not authorized Romero’s performance and no request to carry it out had been submitted.
Diego Prieto, the institute’s director, said Thursday that no pieces were damaged, and claimed – despite the clear security breach – that the MNA is the “most secure” museum in the country.
“In no museum in the world does each visitor have a guard by their side. This person came into the museum with three companions, whose role was to warn him in the event of a guard approaching,” he said.
“Approaching a [museum] piece at such a close distance is not correct, but it’s possible at any museum in the world. Fortunately in this case the approaches didn’t cause damage. … We don’t believe there was any failure in the [museum’s] security systems,” Prieto said.
According to museum director Antonio Saborit, Romero and his accomplices spent just under an hour in the museum on March 31.
“The number of pieces this person touched with his lips is approximately 30 in five rooms: the Gulf, Mexica, Teotihuacán, Toltec and Oaxaca rooms,” Saborit said.
He also defended the museum’s security arrangements. “Every day there are 65 guards spread throughout the museum. They take care of the museum’s wellbeing in all areas,” Saborit said.
Pepe Romero, performance parte del proyecto Mexique, 2022.
El artista fue al Museo Nacional de Antropología en CDMX, besó y lamió algunas piezas de su colección.
Por supuesto que esto coloca a las espectadoras en una posición incómoda, están presenciando un aparente daño pic.twitter.com/nsBtqAb9lf
— Obras de Arte Comentadas (@obrasdeartecom) April 5, 2022
Social media users shared and commented on Pepx Romero’s controversial performance.
In an interview with the newspaper El Universal, Romero acknowledged that his performance was provocative.
“It’s a provocation to attract attention to this situation that is happening in the auctions [of pre-Hispanic artifacts],” he said.
“There have been auctions this year and they haven’t been able to be stopped. … French laws allow this disgrace, … they’re prostituting our heritage in front of our noses,” said Romero, who is also a theater director and founder of a music collective.
He said that the title of his project – which means Mexico in French – is meant to highlight that Mexico is becoming “a decoration boutique for rich people” who can afford to buy pre-Hispanic pieces to decorate their homes.
Asked whether he was nervous about being held to account for his kissing and licking spree given that there are laws that protect the country’s cultural assets, the artist responded:
“I believe that these laws … protect assets from being damaged. However, the act [I carried out] didn’t cause damage. … I’m completely relaxed.”
A roseate spoonbill is just one of the more than 70 waterbirds you can spot at La Vega lake. Chris Lloyd
Without a doubt, the most popular nonalcoholic tourist attraction outside the city of Guadalajara is the Guachimontones Archaeological Site. But once you’ve strolled among the circular pyramids and visited the Phil Wiegand Interactive Museum … what else is there to do?
If you are thinking of eating, swimming, walking, cycling or picnicking — not to mention birdwatching or kayaking — head for the lake!
No, I’m not thinking of Lake Chapala, but rather that little lake you probably already spotted when you climbed to the top of the biggest guachimontón: la Presa de la Vega.
The body of water is nine kilometers long and two wide and is the source of the 230-kilometer-long Ameca river, which serves as the border between Jalisco and Nayarit and whose waters spill into the Pacific Ocean at Puerto Vallarta.
At the northern end of La Vega, there are restaurants, and you’ll find most of them full of people on the weekend. Ceviche, fried fish and shrimp are all popular, but every restaurant around here also includes on its menu a specialty: frogs legs.
Kayakers silently slip into the lake, hoping to see plenty of water birds. Chris Lloyd
This is because the area’s predilection for frogs goes way back — perhaps even to pre-Hispanic times. In fact, the nearby town of Teuchitlán has been holding a yearly Frog Festival for as long as people can remember.
Sad to say, La Vega’s frogs were so popular that they eventually became extinct at the lake, and those you now find on the menu are all imported from the state of Nayarit!
Each of the restaurants offers a picturesque view of the lake as well as of the old aqueduct at its northern end. Most of them will provide kids — and adults too — with a cane pole so they can try their luck as fishermen while waiting for dinner to be served.
The first time I went looking for Presa la Vega, I couldn’t find it. I was of course looking for water, but in that year, 1985, the entire lake was hidden under a carpet of green.
The culprit was the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), popularly called el lirio, which has been fighting tenaciously to take over all the lakes of Jalisco (including Chapala, Mexico biggest lake) ever since an unnamed Frenchwoman — according to legend —brought the plant to Mexico to brighten up her garden pond.
It’s true that these flowers are charming, but unfortunately, the great green carpet of lirios uses up a lot of the lake’s oxygen, to the detriment of its fish stock.
At times, the entire lake may be saturated with water hyacinths.
Over time, a myriad of solutions to El Problema Del Lirio have been tried. For some years, huge floating machines crisscrossed the lakes, chopping up the lirios for compost, but eventually, it was acknowledged that the water hyacinth could actually reproduce faster than the loaders could heap it onto trucks.
Then people came up with biodegradable herbicides that would wipe them out in nothing flat — but at what price? There was even a project to import manatees, which were supposed to happily dine on the lirios, keeping them under control, but no one was able to control the local fishermen and hunters who soon caught every one of the sea cows.
So, over the years, the water hyacinths come and go, nevertheless allowing enough fish to flourish to satisfy great numbers of water birds that frequent the lagoon.
There are so many birds at Lake la Vega (149 species, they say) that the Jalisco Water Commission has published a bird guide Aves de la Presa de la Vega, which you can download as a printable PDF file.
Many of these birds you can see simply by walking along an andador located just south of the restaurants. This is a two-kilometer-long walkway, a rather unusual one because it is bordered by water on both sides, allowing you to spot both marsh and lake birds.
Here you are likely to see white egrets, or jacanas (which walk on the lily pads), ibises, anhingas and cormorants, surely enough species to satisfy someone who is walking off a dinner of mariscos (seafood).
A snowy egret wins the lake’s “Best Hairdo” award. Chris Lloyd
The true birdwatcher, however, will head down to the south end of the lake and launch a kayak from a little park near the dam.
Here, ornithologists can get close to roseate spoonbills, green herons, wood storks and black-bellied whistling ducks. With a little luck, they might even find themselves paddling alongside one of the otters that make their home in this lake.
At the end of this same little park, you also have easy access to a section of Las Vias Verdes. This project has converted many of Jalisco’s unused railway tracks into 91 kilometers of bicycle trails.
These are not dirt trails for mountain bikers but smooth slabs of concrete, perfect for family cycling. Although they were created for tourism, they are also very popular with country folk who use them to bicycle from one rancho to another without having to endanger their lives on a highway.
La Presa De la Vega was declared a RAMSAR site in 2010, categorizing it as one of the most important wetlands in the world. One of its main sources of water is the Teuchitlán river, which comes from warm springs located at El Rincón, very close to the ruins of the Guachimontones.
El Rincón is a popular balneario — a water park with both natural and artificial pools. It’s also home to several species of splitfins, small fish that instead of laying eggs, give live birth to their young.
A spring-fed pool inside Balneario El Rincón at the northern end of La Vega Lake provides refreshing fun.
Probably the most famous species of splitfin is Ameca splendens, the butterfly splitfin, which became a favorite of fish fanciers around the world not only for its beauty but also for its dietary preference: it just happens to love algae, which means a butterfly splitfin in your aquarium will keep it spotlessly clean.
In these waters, researchers from the University of Michoacán recently reintroduced two species that had gone extinct locally: the tequila splitfin (Zoogoneticus tequila) and the golden skiffia (Skiffia francesae),
To reach the restaurant area, ask Google Maps to take you to Zona Restaurantera, Teuchitlán, Jalisco. You’ll find the birdwatching walkway just south of the restaurants.
If you’d like to visit the dam, bicycle trail and little park at the south end of the lake, ask for Muelle La Vega, Jalisco. Both sites are less than an hour’s drive from Guadalajara.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog.
The 91-km network of Vias Verdes bicycle trails can be accessed from La Vega lake.
A quiet park at the south end of the lake offers a good view of the dam.
Otters in the lake attest to the healthiness of the ecosystem, says naturalist Manfred Meiners, who took this photo.Photo courtesy of Manfred Meiners
Frogs’ legs are on the menu at every restaurant on the lake, although they are no longer locally obtained.
A family proudly displays their knick-knack collection at the annual Frog Festival. “These are not for sale,” they say.
Fishing is a good way to pass the time while waiting for your order to arrive … at any of the lakeside restaurants.
This free guide shows 78 birds often seen at Lake La Vega.
View from inside one of the restaurants at the northern edge of the lake.
View of the lirio-covered lake from Restaurante Soky.
Watercolor by artist Jorge Monroy, showing the Guachimontones and the La Vega dam.
After losing their torta shop in Roma Norte, the Ortíz siblings say they could never afford to rent in the neighborhood where their family lived for 50 years.
“It was always about money, never about the law,” said Noemí Ortíz of her family’s forcible removal in February from their decades-old business in Mexico City’s Roma Norte neighborhood. “Fifty-four years of our life in that place, and that was the end of it.”
Since 1968, a storefront on the ground floor of Mérida #83, a large old residential building on the corner of Colima and Mérida streets, had been the home of the Ortíz family torta sandwich business, Tortería Colima, run for the last two decades by Noemí and her four siblings after their father acquired it to run a bakery in the early days.
This came to an abrupt end on February 11 when the family was removedagainst its will by agents of a property law firm that had been fighting to take possession of the building for some 12 years and now lists Mérida #83 as its address.
How this was able to happen is a more complicated story for a different article, but suffice it to say that the motivation for forcing the Ortíz family out of a location they’d occupied for half a century was likely the skyrocketing demand for rental properties and commercial spaces in Mexico City’s most desirable neighborhoods.
Merida #83 currently appears to be under renovation to create apartments. In Roma Norte, monthly rents for a two-bedroom apartment average around 21,150 pesos, according to the real estate platform propiedades.com.
The building at Mérida #83 where the Ortíz family built a life for 54 years, now under renovation.
Tortería Colima, which sold tortas and fresh juices, was an institution in the area, feeding visitors and passersby as well as neighbors and workers at local restaurants, hospitals and schools. Ortíz told Mexico News Daily that their most regular clients were waitstaff, cleaners and other workers on their lunch breaks or on their way home from a shift.
According to Observatorio 06000, an action group concerned with evictions and decreasing affordability of housing in the city center, Tortería Colima had been “one of those little corners of the neighborhood that remained standing despite the gentrification and ‘touristification’ of the area.” To be sure, the Ortíz family members were among the last remaining occupants of the four-story building, which contains 21 apartments and several storefronts.
The family said that over the years, the property law firm had deployed numerous legal challenges, as well as forms of physical harassment, to force them and other tenants out — including drilling holes into the walls and letting water run out. In response, the family behind the much-loved tortería got organized.
They hired lawyers at a cost of thousands of pesos and joined forces with tenants’ action groups in the city such as Observatorio 06000 and the Red de Desalojos (The Evictions Network).
In 2019, they held a giveaway of tortas “in defense of the neighborhood,” gifting free tortas to passersby, sharing the story of their long history in the building and their struggle to stay. They gathered hundreds of signatures from neighbors in the area on a petition expressing support for having the business remain.
The Trevi building in the Historic Center, seen here in 2018, suffered a similar fate to Mérida #83, with tenants slowly forced out. The new owners reportedly want to put a coworking space or hotel there.
According to Ortíz, the community support was palpable. “They did not want us to leave,” she said.
But in the end, all that organized resistance and community goodwill seemed to come to nothing: a group of men and women descended on Tortería Colima on February 11, throwing the business’ bar stools, milkshake makers and crockery out into the street. The aggressors physically attacked members of the family — punchingn and hitting and grabbing the women by the hair, Ortíz recounted — while others welded the doors of the store shut.
“My niece, Isabel, received multiple blows,” she said. “She had bruises on her body.”
The Ortíz family’s dislodgement is not an isolated case in Mexico City, where public debate about families forced to move during the pandemic and the increase in both construction projects and living costs has been particularly aflame lately.
Never a cheap city in which to live, the capital has been, however, experiencing a property affordability crisis.
According to a study conducted by the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)’s Institute of Social Research and the Habitat International Coalition, some 55% of households throughout the city were struggling to pay their rent or mortgage since the pandemic arrived in 2020, leading 30% to change their place of residence.And in the last several months, rent prices that were frozen or that fell in 2021 are now climbing back up, with monthly increases recorded at 0.3% in 2022 according to the real estate platform Inmuebles24.
The newspaper El Sol de México reported last month that judicially permitted evictions of those who inhabited or commercially rented real estate in Mexico City increased 27% from 2020 to 2021. But that eviction data only includes formal rental contracts.
Tortería Colima’s eviction was abrupt and violent: a group representing the property firm taking possession of the building tossed out all the shop’s contents and welded the doors shut.
Habitat International Coalition’s Silvia Emanuelli told the newspaper that about 51% of rentals in the city are informal and these sorts of arrangements often do not involve legal proceedings when eviction becomes an issue.
So, to understand what’s really happening, it is also necessary to consider anecdotal evidence— like the story of the Ortíz family.
While it’s unlikely to be the only factor drivingrising rents and evictions in areas like Roma Norte, there is one related phenomenon that currently is getting a lot of attention from Mexico City locals: the highly visible recent uptick in long-term visitors and new residents from the United States.
As housing costs in cities like New York and Los Angeles have climbed astronomically and more companies are permitting their employees to work remotely, “gringos with laptops” have become a dominant feature of street life in Roma and surrounding neighborhoods.
The street occupied by Tortería Colima for the past five decades is no exception, hosting a growing presence of fancy cafes, pop-up fashion stores and art galleries to serve a U.S.-dollar-earning clientele that stays in Airbnb apartments priced well above what the average local resident can afford.
#EnContexto | ¿Quiénes son los responsables de la gentrificación en la Ciudad de México? ¿Los gringos con laptops? ¿O los empresarios que van detrás del dinero de la especulación?
Por @Maria_Efemerehttps://t.co/u5kLciBWmN
“Gringos with laptops” have become a visible phenomenon in some of the capital’s central neighborhoods, sparking ire and debate.
Social media has registered Mexico City residents’ criticism and frustration with this phenomenon. The visible domination of central capital neighborhoods by these digital nomads, the loose migration controls on U.S. citizens in Mexico and these newcomers’ ability to earn dollars and spend pesos is difficult for many chilangos to overlook.
When a visitor from Austin recently tweeted that remote working in Mexico City “is truly magical,” a storm of indignation among Mexico City residentsabout remote workers from the U.S. pushing locals out of their own neighborhoods ensued online. Referring to the dislodgement of Tortería Colima, Mexico City editor Brenda Mireles put it this way:
“Yes, come and see the magic of illegal evictions caused by the massive arrival of foreigners who impose their way of life at the expense of the original residents,” she said. “A marvel that cannot be missed!”
Ortíz agrees that the predominance of higher-income foreigners in the Roma Norte neighborhood — many from the U.S., Argentina, and France — is related to pressure on lower-income residents, but she does not blame them directly.
The trouble, she said, comes “from those who want more money, who already have the money to pay lawyers, police, the whole system … to buy the buildings and vacate them all to remodel.”
“Give them a little manita de gato [touch-up] and sell them at the price that foreigners can buy,” she explained.
One Twitter user’s rebuttal to the infamous tweet in February about remote work in Mexico City that went viral.
Indeed, that’s the central proposition of a new documentary film called PUSH, which opened in Mexico in March: that the blame for residents around the world being pushed out of their neighborhoods must be directed at the investment companies and private equity funds that have turned housing everywhere into a commodity to trade and profit from.
“It’s an elusive-by-design global system that has turned people’s homes into abstract financial assets traded on the stock market — moneymaking machines for the already more than wealthy,” wrote the documentary’s filmmaker, Fredrik Gertten, in The Washington Post Español op-ed coauthored with the film’s protagonist, housing advocate Leilani Farha.
“The main culprit behind the housing crisis in Mexico,” the pair wrote, “… is not someone on Twitter sipping a cortado in between a yoga class and the next Zoom meeting.”
Regardless of the analysis, the outcome of Mexico City’s affordability crisis — marked by financialization and speculation and the replacement of lower income communities by higher income ones — has been devastating for individuals and families like Ortíz and her siblings.
Along with a traumatic uprooting of two generations of work and community connection, they have lost their livelihood.
“We can’t go and set up in Roma again; we cannot afford to rent anywhere there,” she said. “We do not know what we will do. There are very few jobs for older people [like us].”
PUSH - Teaser Trailer
“We are not asking for a lot,” she said. “It’s not just that we want to live where we work. More than anything, what we want is to work — we are used to working.”
And the Roma Norte community has lost too, she argues.
“Our tortas were healthy,” she said, “and they cost less than at the street stalls. People could rely on us selling exactly the same good food that we made for our family.”
Navy marines detained the three victims in Tabasco in 2011.
Three marines accused of committing acts of sexual torture against two women and one trans man in 2011 have finally been put on trial.
Korina Utrera, Denís Blanco and Charly Hernández were arbitrarily detained by navy personnel in Tabasco on August 27, 2011, according to a press release issued by the Centro Prodh human rights organization.
They were then illegally held at a military facility for more than 30 hours, during which time they were victims of sexual torture, said Centro Prodh, which has worked on the case.
The three victims were accused of being members of the Zetas criminal organization and jailed for over five years until they were absolved and released in November 2016.
Warrants for the arrest of the marines on torture charges were issued last November and they were subsequently taken into custody. They are now on trial in a federal court.
Korina Utrera, Charly Hernández and Denís Blanco. Amnesty International
“The beginning of the criminal process is an important step toward the justice that the survivors have sought since they regained their freedom,” Centro Prodh said.
“… We call on the federal judicial power to try [the accused] with a gender perspective and respecting due process,” it said.
The two women were in a relationship and living in Villahermosa when they were abducted from their home by hooded marines, according to a report by the newspaper El País.
They attempted to convince the marines they were not the people they were looking for, but their efforts were to no avail.
Utrera and Blanco, both originally from Veracruz, told El País that the marines’ aggressiveness toward them increased when they found out they were in a same-sex relationship. Their ordeal occurred during the government of former president Felipe Calderón, who launched a militarized war on drug cartels shortly after he took office in late 2006.
Homicides surged during Calderón’s 2006-12 presidency and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) received more than 30,000 complaints against security forces for crimes such as torture, arbitrary executions and forced disappearances. Very few cases resulted in criminal punishment for the alleged perpetrators.
According to El País, the physical consequences of the sexual torture suffered by Utrera and Blanco lasted for years. One of the accused marines raped Utrera with his gloved hands in the bed of a pickup truck, causing injuries that were documented years later by the CNDH, the newspaper said.
“All this makes me very cold,” Blanco said, recalling the torture and the years she spent in jail.
When the two women found out that their aggressors had been detained, they felt a mixture of fear and anxiety rather than relief, El País said. Neither has yet received any compensation for the abuse they suffered and their wrongful imprisonment.
While the alleged perpetrators are yet to be convicted and sentenced, Centro Prodh lawyer Melissa Zamora said the arrest of the marines is an important step forward given the high rates of impunity for torture cases.
“But as in other cases,” she added, “only the direct culprits are accused and not the people … in charge of [ensuring] these practices don’t occur.”
Mexico was one of 58 countries that abstained from Thursday's vote at the UN Human Rights Council. Twitter @UN_HRC
Mexico on Thursday abstained in a United Nations vote that suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights in Ukraine,” a move that drew harsh criticism from an international human rights organization.
Ninety-three countries voted in favor of Russia’s suspension, 24 voted against and 58 abstained.
Among those that voted against suspension were Russia itself, China, Cuba and North Korea. In addition to Mexico, the countries that abstained included India, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
After the resolution was adopted, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative Gennady Kuzmin abruptly announced that Russia had already decided to leave the council.
President López Obrador announced Thursday morning that Mexico – which has condemned Russia’s invasion but not imposed any sanctions – would abstain in the vote.
After being voted out, Russian Permanent Representative Gennady Kuzmin said Russia had already decided to leave the council anyway. Youtube screenshot/UN Human Rights Council
“What we have set out is that we shouldn’t vote for the expulsion of Russia nor be against it, we’re going to abstain,” he said.
“Why the abstention, which is also a position? Because … how can we resolve Russia’s conflict with Ukraine if we don’t have mediation? What is the UN for? How … [could we] blow up an instrument that is fundamental to achieving peace agreements and avoiding war …? Why not accept that this war exposed the failure of politics? Because politics was invented to avoid war,” López Obrador said.
“… The parties have to be called to negotiation, to dialogue, to stop the war. … If the UN is not able to speak with Russia, because they expelled Russia, who will speak with the Russian government?”
Mexico’s permanent representative to the United Nations gave a more succinct explanation for the abstention.
“Exclusions at this time don’t resolve the problem and that’s why Mexico abstained in this resolution,” Juan Ramón de la Fuente said.
“… I hope that … [the suspension of Russia from the Human Rights Council] won’t be an additional obstacle for other bodies of the UN such as the Security Council and the General Assembly itself to keep working. We need to find a diplomatic solution so Mexico is in favor of everything that will keep inclusion and dialogue on the table …” he said.
Tamara Taraciuk, acting director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) slammed Mexico’s decision to abstain, while the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) was also critical, although he didn’t specifically mention Mexico.
“Mexico’s abstention stance, along with Brazil and El Salvador, is a disgrace because … there is evidence of possible war crimes [in Ukraine],” Taraciuk told the newspaper El Universal.
“We’ve documented cases of summary executions, illegal violence against [Ukrainian] citizens and repeated sexual violence,” the HRW representative said. “… In this context, saying or suggesting that Russia can have a place at the table of the Human Rights Council is a disgrace.”
OAS chief Luis Almagro said on Twitter that he supported the UN’s decision to suspend Russia and asserted that to be neutral at a time when crimes against humanity are being committed is to be an “accomplice.”
President López Obrador applauds Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar at the third annual report of the federal judiciary in Dec. 2021. Gobierno de México
The Supreme Court (SCJN) has confirmed that the most important articles of a controversial electricity law can be implemented, delivering a ruling that is a significant victory for President López Obrador in his quest to reform Mexico’s energy sector.
The Electricity Industry Law (LIE), which gives power generated by the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) priority on the national grid over that produced by private and renewable energy companies, was passed by Congress in March 2021.
However, its enforcement was prevented by injunctions granted to private energy companies. The latest challenge to the LIE was brought by opposition party senators, the Federal Economic Competition Commission and the state of Colima.
Seven of 11 Supreme Court justices held that the LIE violates the right to free competition in the energy sector and hinders the transition to clean energy sources, upholding a federal court ruling that suspended the law shortly after it took effect.
But their opinions were insufficient to invalidate the law as eight votes were needed for its revocation.
The CFE relies on nonrenewable energy sources for electricity, including its Carbon II coal-fired power plant in Nava, Coahuila. Twitter
The key article that the SCJN ruled is valid is that which gives electricity generated by the CFE priority on the national grid.
The state-owned company relies heavily on coal and oil to produce electricity, meaning that Mexico’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase as a result of the LIE. The federal government is pursuing a separate reform that would guarantee the CFE 54% of the electricity market, a significant increase over the share it currently holds.
The Supreme Court also ruled that several other LIE articles that benefit the CFE are valid, including one that eliminates a requirement to buy power from the supplier selling it at the lowest price.
With the law declared constitutional by the country’s highest court, injunctions preventing its implementation will have to be lifted.
But the United States government believes the ruling is unlikely to end legal challenges to the LIE.
“The U.S. government respects Mexico’s sovereignty and democratic processes. It is in that vein of cooperation and respect that we are concerned that the 2021 electricity law is likely to open the door to endless litigation, creating uncertainty and impeding investment,” Ambassador Ken Salazar said in a statement on the Supreme Court’s decision.
Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, warned that the ruling could lead to “endless litigation.” Cuartoscuro
He noted that the measures now before the Mexican legislature – the proposed reform that would guarantee the CFE over half the electricity market – have impacts on North American competitiveness.
In that context, Salazar said, “we hope that the legal framework that emerges will support the creation of a North American clean energy powerhouse, protect current and future U.S. business investments in Mexico in accordance with Mexico’s obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement [USMCA], and protect the integration of U.S.-Mexico supply chains for the prosperity of our region.”
In a letter sent to Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier last week, United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai warned that over US $10 billion in U.S. investment in Mexico was at risk due to the country’s energy policies.
Kenneth Smith, a former trade official who headed up Mexico’s negotiating team in USMCA talks with its North American free trade partners, warned that the United States and Canada could use the trade pact to take action against Mexico if the proposed electricity reform passes Congress in its current form.
If the bill becomes law, the U.S. and Canada could use chapter 31 of the USMCA to challenge it via an arbitration panel, Smith said, noting that that chapter sets out mechanisms to resolve disputes between countries.
“The decision of a panel could result in significant trade repercussions and retaliation against [Mexican] export products … [to] cover the damage caused,” he said.
Responding to Thursday’s court decision, analyst Carlos Petersen of Eurasia Group said it creates some legal uncertainty for businesses whose confidence has already been adversely affected by policy and political uncertainty in Mexico.
“That will likely discourage investment,” he told the Financial Times.
Lawyer José Maria Lujambio of Cacheaux, Cavazos & Newton said the situation could become chaotic. “There’s a whole salad bowl of arguments, so collegiate courts and judges can take whatever they want from it.”
Silvano Aureoles, then-governor of Michoacán, at the November 2020 inauguration of the Ciudad Salud general hospital. Michoacán Health Ministry
An investigation has uncovered an apparent corruption scheme in which the previous Michoacán government awarded contracts for a hospital project to companies with links to political allies of former governor Silvano Aureoles.
Supported by a UNESCO journalism program and published by the newspaper Milenio, the probe detected irregularities in contracts worth over 1.1 billion pesos (US $54.5 million) in total, that were given to companies to complete work on the 3-billion-peso Ciudad Salud (Health City) project in the state capital Morelia.
Two new hospitals were built in the Ciudad Salud precinct, which opened in 2020: a 250-bed general hospital and a 100-bed children’s hospital. The federal government provided 2.6 billion pesos for the project – the largest completed by the Aureoles administration – while the other 400 million pesos came from the state government.
According to the UNESCO/Milenio investigation, some of the companies awarded contracts have links to political allies of Aureoles, who was the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) governor of Michoacán between October 2015 and September 2021.
GCQ Construcciones, which was awarded a contract worth 376.4 million pesos (US $18.7 million), has links to Carlos Herrera Tello, the government secretary in the Aureoles administration and the PRD candidate in Michoacán’s 2021 gubernatorial election.
Businessman and politician Carlos Herrera did well during Aureoles’ tenure: at least 14 of his businesses received irregular contracts, according to the now-defunct Michoacán Monitor, which shut down in March after its director was murdered.
Samedic, a health sector supplier, won a contract worth 160 million pesos (US $7.9 million). It has links to Alexis Nickin Gaxiola, son-in-law of former Tabasco governor Roberto Madrazo, the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate in the 2006 presidential election.
The investigation also raised questions about a contract worth 430.2 million pesos that was awarded to a consortium made up of Roth’s Ingeniería and Constructora Tzaulan. More on that later.
The Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) detected a range of irregularities related to Ciudad Salud contracts, among which were payments for work not carried out and payments higher than those agreed to. The irregularities the ASF detected added up to 751.6 million pesos (US $37.4 million).
Of Aureoles’ political allies that benefited from Ciudad Salud contracts, Carlos Herrera appears to have the clearest conflict of interest.
Described by journalists Concepción Peralta Silverio and Ami Sosa as Aureoles’ right-hand man, Herrera was the legal representative of Quality Construcciones, a company that changed its name to GCQ Construcciones in 2016, the investigation said.
“His power was so wide-ranging that he could even sell the company,” the report said.
Alexis Nickin Gaxiola, son-in-law of former Tabasco Governor Roberto Madrazo, jointly owns a company with one of the owners of Samedic, which received at least US $16.8 million in contracts for the hospitals.
The investigation noted that GCQ had no experience in building hospitals, yet was awarded a 376-million-peso contract to complete work on the third stage of the general hospital. It formed an alliance with the company Constructora Pátzcuaro to complete the project.
The investigation cited four reasons why awarding the contract to GCQ represented a potential conflict of interest: Herrera is a former mayor of Zitácuaro and is thus prevented by a federal law from participating in bidding processes for government projects; one of GCQ’s owners is Herrera’s brother-in-law; the company was the subject of criminal complaints related to its failure to complete work on infrastructure projects in Tuxpan; and Herrera is a known friend of Aureoles and was appointed Michoacán government secretary in April 2019.
The investigation said that evidence suggests that the bidding process that resulted in GCQ winning the contract was not carried out in a fair way. Two competitors that presented lower bids were disqualified, allegedly because they made clerical errors on their applications. Those companies filed complaints about their treatment but they went nowhere.
A lawyer for GCQ said that Herrera was not a representative of the company when it was awarded the Ciudad Salud contract. The company was awarded two other lucrative contracts during the six years Aureoles was in office.
Michoacán-based construction companies told the investigative journalists that contracts were routinely awarded to the former governor’s favorite companies, which resulted in other firms going bankrupt due to a lack of work.
One construction company chief who asked not to be identified said that his firm did not participate in bidding processes because they were “rigged.”
Young patients being transferred on opening day to the Eva Sámano de López Mateos children’s hospital, which missed its second-stage construction deadline by 17 months.
The only Ciudad Salud contract that wasn’t awarded as a result of a (supposedly) competitive tender process went to Samedic, which supplied medical equipment to both the general and children’s hospitals.
Nickin, Madrazo’s son-in-law, jointly owns another company with one of the Samedic owners, the UNESCO/Milenio investigation said. The journalists didn’t point out any explicit links between Nickin and Aureoles.
They did say that Samedic subcontracted smaller companies to install medical equipment in the two hospitals, and that one of the subcontractors had complained about not being fully paid.
The report also said that Samedic was awarded four other contracts worth 338.5 million pesos during the six-year term of the Aureoles government.
The investigation raised a number of concerns about the bidding process that resulted in the Roth’s/Tzaulan consortium being awarded a contract for the construction of the second stage of the children’s hospital. It said that another company with the same owners as Roth’s, called Constructor Erlort y Asociados, was permitted to participate in the same process, resulting in a “clear simulation of competition.”
One company, Luviano, which built the first stage of the children’s hospital, was disqualified for presenting a bid higher than the authorized budget, while Edificaciones Tres Ríos was ruled out due to clerical errors on its application.
The investigative journalists questioned why the Roth’s/Tzaulan consortium was awarded the contract when the former company had no experience in building hospitals and the latter failed to meet the deadline for the construction of a hospital in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas.
The consortium was 17 months late in completing the second stage of the Ciudad Salud children’s hospital, and the project ended up costing 37% more than the amount specified in the original contract.
The two companies – which were paid a total of 590.3 million pesos, or 160 million pesos more than the amount originally agreed – were not sanctioned in any way for failing to meet the scheduled deadline. The second stage’s final price tag made it the most expensive Ciudad Salud project.
The investigation named the owners of Roth’s and Tzaulan but didn’t provide any details about the relationship they had with Aureoles.
With the exception of one company – ICA – the firms awarded contracts to work on the Morelia healthcare precinct had their biggest ever payday thanks to their association with the Michoacán government led by Aureoles, according to the civil society organization Poder, which has a public contracts database.
Despite the juicy contracts, some of the work on the two hospitals was substandard, the UNESCO/Milenio investigation said. The hospitals have been flooded by rain and wastewater and there are concerns about the foundations of the children’s hospital, it said.
The investigation said that current Michoacán Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla is in a position to hold the previous government to account, but noted that he is in an uncomfortable situation because his health minister, Elías Ibarra Torres, worked for the Aureoles’ administration in the same position and his signature appears on some of the contracts in question.
López Obrador said he has no connection to Attorney General Gertz.
President López Obrador has labeled four United States senators liars after they accused him of using the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to target government critics.
Four Democratic Party senators including Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menéndez wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland to express concerns that López Obrador’s government and the FGR are “politicizing the Mexican justice system and jeopardizing the independence of democratic institutions.”
“President López Obrador’s tenure has been marked by an increasing pattern of seemingly selective prosecutions disproportionately targeting government critics,” said the April 5 letter signed by Menéndez, Patrick Leahy, Benjamin Cardin and Jeffrey Merkley.
“These investigations have been pursued by the FGR – an institution that is constitutionally autonomous from the executive branch, but which has in practice aligned with President López Obrador – with the apparent aim of discrediting and silencing political opponents, as well as pursuing personal vendettas,” the letter said.
The senators cited three cases to support their claim. They said that leaked recordings of a call between Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero and another FGR official “raise questions about whether Gertz Manero improperly used FGR resources.”
“They also raise questions about improper dealings between Gertz Manero and members of Mexico’s Supreme Court in a case in which the national prosecutor accuses his in-laws of failing to provide proper care to his brother, who died in 2015 at the age of 82,” the letter said. “Despite this, President López Obrador continues to defend Gertz Manero.”
They noted that the scientists belonged to an advisory forum that has been critical of the federal government.
The lawmakers also observed that in August 2021 the FGR pressed corruption charges against Ricardo Anaya, a 2018 presidential candidate and outspoken critic of López Obrador. The charges are related to a bribery case involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht and Mexican lawmakers in Congress during former president Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012-18 presidency.
“According to press reports, ‘political analysts and legal scholars, including two allies of Mr. López Obrador currently serving in official legal capacities, say the case against Mr. Anaya is riddled with inconsistencies,’” the senators’ letter said.
“Cases such as these stand in stark contrast to instances in which President López Obrador’s government and the FGR have failed to seriously investigate or prosecute potential corruption among individuals linked to the president,” the Democrats said, citing cases involving his personal secretary and brother.
“The selective prosecutions also contrast markedly with the FGR’s decision to close the investigation against former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos in January 2021, following Cienfuegos’ arrest in the United States … on charges of collusion with narcotics traffickers,” the letter said.
“In light of this pattern of apparent selective and politically motivated prosecutions, efforts by President López Obrador and his allies to target and weaken the independence of Mexico’s judicial system raise significant concerns,” the senators said, citing the president’s attack on a judge who ruled against an energy proposal, his attempt to extend the term of the chief justice of the Supreme Court in apparent violation of the constitution and his call for members of the Mexico’s top electoral court to resign.
“As José Miguel Vivanco, former executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Division has noted, these actions demonstrate a disregard for judicial independence and are a ‘direct assault on the rule of law,’” the letter said.
“We urge you to give serious consideration to the risk of a weakened, politicized, justice system in Mexico, and to raise and prioritize these concerns in discussions with your Mexican counterparts,” the senators told Blinken and Garland.
“The United States government must explicitly communicate its continued support for Mexico’s independent institutions, as well as its firm belief that President López Obrador’s efforts to advance legitimate accountability initiatives must strengthen, not dismantle, democratic institutions and the rule of law.”
López Obrador rejected the senators’ claims at his news conference on Thursday, asserting that it was untrue that he has used the FGR for political purposes.
“With all respect, they’re liars, … perhaps they’re misinformed,” he said, adding that the senators were motivated by upcoming midterm elections in the United States.
“It’s a good thing there are only four of them because four swallows don’t make a summer,” the president quipped.
“What am I going to say back to them? Nothing,” he said before launching into a response later in his morning press conference.
“… I don’t have any connection to Attorney General Gertz Manero other than [my] respect [for him]. It’s no longer the time in which the president gave instructions to the judicial power, to the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, no,” López Obrador said.
“There is now an authentic rule of law, there’s not a crooked state. … [The senators] are lying, they are, the least I can say, uninformed,” he said.
“… Perhaps these senators don’t know me or perhaps they’re used to something else [in Mexico], but [the situation] has already changed. Hopefully they’ll inform themselves and if they have proof present it, but generally they’re complaints without foundation. It’s due to the [electoral] season and because the conservatives of Mexico are now accusing us [from] abroad, they go there to accuse us,” López Obrador said.
“… If … [the senators] have no foundation and it’s just a campaign against us, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans won’t like that, and if they’re looking for votes it won’t help them. I shouldn’t even be giving them advice, but there are 40 million Mexicans in the United States,” he said.
“… They’re wrong, misinformed. … Furthermore, … we don’t accept [foreign] interference,” López Obrador added.“… Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country.”
Rather than filling your vacation with tours or activities sold by a large company, consider using local folks who need the income and know the area intimately.
In just a few days, schools across Mexico will close for the Semana Santa and Pascua (Easter) holidays. Many Mexican families take vacations during this time, and the holidays often coincide with student spring breaks in the United States and Canada.
The result is millions of people descending on beaches and other tourist destinations throughout the country over a short span of two weeks.
For big beach towns like Cabo San Lucas and Cancún, the influx of visitors is more easily absorbed (although it still takes a huge toll) as there are already big hotels, decent infrastructure and services set up for large numbers of tourists.
But for smaller beach communities like Puerto Escondido, Sayulita, San Pancho and Chacala, Nayarit, (where I live), the temporary doubling or even quintupling of the local population can take a serious toll on the infrastructure and environment.
Take Chacala, for example. Our permanent, year-round resident population is around 350 people. During the high season for tourists, the population triples to about 1,000 people. But during the Semana Santa and Pascua holidays, it can grow to 2,000 or more.
Semana Santa tourists in 2018 at Playa Chacala, Nayarit, located in a town that at other times of year has a population of 350. Debbie Slobe
We have no centralized water treatment facility here and not nearly enough public trash cans. And suddenly, more than five times the usual number of people are using the septic tanks and garbage cans (if the trash even makes it to a garbage can).
It can get ugly fast.
As Semana Santa and Pascua approach, it’s important to think about ways we can reduce our impact on the places we visit and better support local communities during this hectic time. Here are some ideas for how to tread more lightly and do more good during your travels — in Mexico and beyond.
Reduce your waste: bring your own reusable shopping bags, straws, coffee mugs and water bottles when you travel so you can reduce the number of plastic bags, throw-away cups and straws you use or are given. When going out to eat, bring a plastic container with a lid (your rental probably already has a few containers) for leftovers to avoid using styrofoam containers.
Refrain from buying drinks in plastic bottles and go for homemade fruit drinks (aguas frescas) in restaurants, or opt for drinks that come in returnable glass bottles (beer usually falls into this category, yay!). When you go to the beach, bring a large plastic bag with you and pick up the trash you see around you. Leave it looking cleaner than you found it!
Shop locally: rather than buying all your groceries at Costco, El Comer, Mega, Walmart or other corporate grocery chains before you arrive, buy your food from the local shops, vendors and grocers. You might not find all your favorite items or specialty products, but one week without your favorite peanut butter won’t kill you.
It is also way more satisfying, fun and less wasteful to buy produce from a local frutería, bread from a local panadería and fish from a local pescadería than from an impersonal big-box supermarket. The products are always fresher and tastier and often come in less or no plastic. Plus, buying locally supports the community’s economy.
Stay in locally-owned hotels: there’s been a lot of new hotel development along Mexico’s coastlines, and Chacala is no different. But not every shiny new hotel is owned locally or has the community’s best interests in mind.
Eating food made fresh and in front of you by locals is always more memorable and helps the community’s economy. Kelly Mason Photo/Shutterstock
Using rentals and hotels owned by established community members means that the money you spend will stay in the community. If you are new to an area, it may take a bit of research to find locally owned places, but many towns have community Facebook groups where you can ask for lodging recommendations.
Hire local service providers: from transportation to tour guides, choose folks that live in the community you are visiting. Rather than renting a car with a national agency, consider hiring a driver from town to pick you up at the airport. Use local taxis and combis (taxi vans) to get around.
When planning excursions like whale watching or hiking, don’t book with big tour companies from the nearest city but rather with local guides and boat captains — who generally have a better knowledge of the flora and fauna and the best spots to see whales.
Instead of resting on your laurels all day, consider enriching your mind while enriching the community. Want to create? Hire a local artisan to teach you how to make traditional handcrafts. Want to learn some Spanish? Hire a local Spanish teacher to tutor you in the basics. Want to learn how to make a mean mole? Hire a local cook to show you how.
There is likely an abundance of local expertise available wherever you are visiting to help you have an enriching, fulfilling vacation and at the same time support the resident population. Again, you can often find and arrange these opportunities ahead of time by joining a community’s Facebook group and asking around for recommendations.
Support local causes: most communities — even small ones — have their own community-led organizations and initiatives working to serve the needs of locals. For example, here in Chacala, we have groups that provide educational opportunities for children, train people in employable trades such as woodworking and food production, provide water safety programs for kids and training for local lifeguards, offer sterilization services for cats and dogs, coordinate a weekly volunteer trash pickup and more.
This gentleman likely faced travel costs and a significant fee to sell you hats on the beach. Maybe you don’t need to haggle with him over 100 pesos? Aspects and Angles/Shutterstock
On your next vacation, consider making a gift to the community in the form of a financial or material donation to one or more local initiatives. Again, you can usually find out about these initiatives via the community Facebook group.
Don’t haggle: the back-and-forth negotiation tourists often engage in to get the lowest price for something is a pretty common practice in Mexico; I used to be a haggler myself. But I’ve come to realize just how harmful haggling can be.
Most vendors have to pay a fee for the right to sell their products on the beach or at local markets, and many travel long distances to set up shop there. What they sell that day might determine whether their family eats sufficiently.
While you may think something is “overpriced,” remember that it’s probably still a bargain compared to what you would pay for an equivalent product in your home country (as if you could find hand-painted Talavera pottery at home!). So just pay what folks are asking or simply tell them no gracias.
Got ethical travel tips to share with our readers? Let us know in the comments below!
Debbie Slobe is a writer and communications strategist based in Chacala, Nayarit. She blogs at Mexpatmama.com and is a senior program director at Resource Media. Find her on Instagram and Facebook.
The president spoke out against U.S. Representative Vicente González's proposal on Wednesday.
A United States lawmaker has called on the U.S. government to revoke the visas of Mexican deputies who joined a Mexico-Russia friendship group last month, triggering a blunt response from President López Obrador.
U.S. Representative Vicente González wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to request visa revocations for deputies who joined the friendship group, which was formally established in the lower house of Congress on March 23, just under a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
“In recent days and in the midst of an international crisis in Eastern Europe, several legislators from Mexico’s federal Congress (Chamber of Deputies) took this opportunity to shun the free world and stand with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin by forming a Mexico-Russia Friendship Committee. The timing of this committee sent a clear message to the United States and the free world,” the Democratic Party lawmaker wrote in an April 4 letter.
“… In light of Russia’s illegal aggression towards Ukraine, I call upon you to stand with Ukraine and condemn this ‘friendship committee’ by issuing visa revocations for all Mexican members of Congress that have participated in this deplorable assembly,” González wrote.
“If these individuals refuse to condemn Russia, and instead choose to stand with tyranny, they should not be allowed the privilege of entering, traveling or investing in the United States of America.”
Members of the Mexican Congress participating in the “Mexico-Russia Friendship Committee” should not be allowed to enter, travel, or invest in the US.
— Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (@RepGonzalez) April 5, 2022
The representative for Texas’s 15th congressional district provided Blinken and Mayorkas with a list of 25 deputies he said had joined the Mexico-Russia friendship group, most of whom represent the ruling Morena party and its ally the Labor Party.
López Obrador on Wednesday made it clear he didn’t agree with the U.S. lawmaker, describing his proposal as “prehistoric” and asserting that he made it to to help his chances of reelection at midterm elections later this year.
“I don’t believe it’s fair and I don’t believe it’s rational to want to suspend the visas of those who gathered to express their points of view with respect to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
“… There is now a campaign asking that they not be allowed to enter the United States. That’s a return to the Cold War, to the times of persecution and exclusion and authoritarianism,” López Obrador told reporters.
“I don’t agree with that,” he said, noting that he also didn’t agree with Twitter blocking the account of former United States president Donald Trump in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.
“That goes against freedom. … What will happen to the Statue of Liberty in New York – it will turn green from anger,” López Obrador said, adding that if lawmakers’ U.S. visas are revoked the government will send a diplomatic note in protest.
Asked whether he endorsed the Mexico-Russia friendship group, AMLO didn’t give a direct response, simply saying that “we’re free.”
He then highlighted a Twitter post by airline Volaris, in which it said it respected diversity of opinion and acknowledged the existence of different ideologies.
“An applause for Volaris,” López Obrador said, before clapping his hands and flashing a broad grin.
“… How can we talk about freedom and threaten to limit freedom? And why position ourselves like judges to decide what’s right and what’s wrong?” he asked. “Why don’t we allow people to express themselves?”
